McDaniels is master of innovation
FOXBORO — Josh McDaniels has gotten creative with his offensive game plans before.
He’s no a stranger to obstacles, whether it’s not having Rob Gronkowski for long periods of time, or Julian Edelman for an entire season, or even Tom Brady for the first four games of the season.
So having a shortage of quality wide receivers is just one more test for the Patriots offensive coordinator.
He’ll make it work. Yesterday, McDaniels didn’t seem the least bit concerned with the obvious dearth of talent in his receiver group. To him, it’s like playing chess. He’s not worried, even if he has to start the game without bishops on the board.
“Each year’s different. I know that our responsibility is to take the group of guys in our room and maximize the strengths of the players we have, and we’ve got a lot of strengths,” McDaniels said about the thinned out receiving corps. “There’s guys in there in each position that do things well. I’ve said it a number of times before, when we get to the point where we’re playing a game, a regular-season game, our job is to take the group of guys we have, and the scheme we have available to us and try and beat the other team.”
McDaniels likes to say each team has a group of players available in a bucket and a scheme to use. The challenge is being better at working the players you have in that bucket and beat the opponent “somehow, some way.”
“We’ve gone to games before with five backs, we’ve gone with three. We’ve gone with a number of receivers, we’ve gone with less. We’ve gone with seven linemen, we’ve gone with nine,” he said. “So each year’s different, each week’s different. I really like the group we have. We’re working hard each day to get better and develop the chemistry we need in the passing game in particular. We’ll see how it plays out.”
The Patriots offense has been near the top in points scored, averaging 28.4 points per game the past five years alone. Having Brady at the helm makes the job easier, of course, but McDaniels still has to put the plan in motion with the pieces he has in place.
He did employ threereceiver sets last year, although he didn’t utilize that as much as other teams in the league. With Brandin Cooks, Chris Hogan and Danny Amendola, it was easy to line up three. McDaniels doesn’t have that luxury at the moment, especially the first four games with Edelman serving his suspension and Cooks and Amendola gone.
Beyond Hogan, there’s Phillip Dorsett, whose made strides recently. There’s also Cordarrelle Patterson, and a bunch of unproven players fighting for a roster spot. Throughout his career, Patterson has been mostly a return specialist and big-play threat. He hasn’t seen much time in any offense.
But McDaniels may have other ideas on how to utilize his talents.
“He can do a lot of things. He’s working hard to master the little things,” McDaniels said. “He’s been in a few different places. This is a system that’s new to him. He’s got a good attitude, he’s working hard, and he’s getting better.’’
Tight end Jacob Hollister is like a big receiver, and he also has James White, Rex Burkhead and Sony Michel, backs who can catch the football. Then there’s allworld tight end Gronkowski, who solves just about every problem any team might have on offense.
The potential spoiler is that Burkhead and Michel have been out with knee injuries. Their status for opening week is uncertain.
Once again, McDaniels, whose dealt with all kinds of issues, didn’t seem too concerned. This isn’t his first rodeo.
“To me, I always believe there’s a way to do whatever you want to do. Like I said, our job on offense is to score. We go out there, and we go out there for only one reason. Some weeks we might look different than others,” he said. “We’ve been very fortunate we’ve had personnel available to us to be able to change from week to week based on injury, an opponent, a strength and weakness of an opponent, scheme, something they do well we don’t want to be facing a whole lot, and we’re willing to do that. Bill (Belichick) gives us the confidence to try to go ahead and do that as we need to.”
The Patriots and McDaniels have been a game-plan specific team. They gear the offense toward what they perceive to be the areas of weakness of the opponent they’re facing that particular week.
Even with what looks like a short bench at receiver, especially without Edelman the first four weeks, McDaniels still believes he has the personnel to be chameleon-like from week to week, changing on the fly depending on the opponent.
“I always feel that way. We have a great group of people in our room that give us a lot of flexibility,” he said. “Whatever we feel like we have to do to win that week, that’s what we’re gonna try to do.”
One might think he’s over-selling the group. But based on what McDaniels has done in the past with less, this challenge might seem easy.